Glass House
by iridescentZEN
Summary: Bree's visit to Karl Mayer with a basket full of muffins.


Title: Glass House  
Author: coffee  
Fandom: Desperate Housewives  
Rating: PG13  
Spoils: Everything  
Pairing: Karl Mayer and Bree Van de Kamp  
varietypack100 prompt: 066 rain

--- )-( ---

Bree came bearing gifts. A basket filled with fresh baked muffins. Karl Mayer knew that Bree liked her baskets back or she tended to withhold all kinds of tasty dessert treats. What he didn't expect with the muffins and surprise visit was that Bree wanted to hire him for his law skills.

Karl preened at the check. It wasn't about the money. It was about knowing that Bree wouldn't trust just anyone for the job, but inside he was worried. What could this possibly be about?

Karl made her a cup of coffee, sat her down at his kitchen table and sat across from her. "Bree, what's this about?"

"My son is trying to blackmail me with some ... personal information. He's threatened to go to the police."

"Well what is it?"

"George Williams, as I'm sure you know, poisoned Rex."

"Yeah, I heard. That's crazy." It made Karl feel numb. It was bad enough to find out his best friend was dead, but now knowing that the choice was taken from him, that he was murdered. It made him sick.

"Why would that little dweeb take out Rex?"

Bree abruptly averted her eyes, gazing at the sangria colored Moroccan tile top of his kitchen table. Karl's glad he just wiped it down. Otherwise, the table top might not live up to her standards. "To get rid of Rex so he could," Bree cleared her throat, "be with me." She said those three words so quietly Karl almost didn't hear her.

Be with me.

"What?" Karl took a bite of blueberry muffin. "What would make him think he had a chance with y--." He trailed off at the look on her face. One shade closer to devastation.

"I didn't cheat on my husband if that's what you're thinking. I loved him. I ... still do." With indignation she added, "Even if he did die thinking that I murdered him."

Karl raised his eyebrows. Suzy-Q and Edie held back some of the gossip from him.  
"What makes you think Rex thought that before he died?"

Bree was genuinely surprised that he hadn't been told with the rest of the story. "He left me a note."

"What did it say?" Karl knew he was being intrusive, but he figured in order to know what it said, he'd have to get it from the source and not from either of his girls.

There was a long awkward pause before Bree stated matter of fact, "Bree, I love you and I forgive you."

Oh, that was terrible. Bad enough that her husband was murdered, but to know that he died thinking that she was the one who did it?

Ouch.

Karl waited patiently for more of the story. "So, George is the pharmacist guy?"

"Yes," Bree licked her lips before continuing, "George listened to me. He was nice. He liked gardening, and the opera. And well ..." she trailed off.

Hey, even if Bree did cheat on Rex, Karl wasn't about to sit in his giant glass house and throw stones. Rex did cheat on her. The entire neighborhood knew it the minute Maisy Gibbons offered up her little black book in exchange for a plea bargain.

And everyone laughed and huddled in their little cliques, thrilled that the perfect Bree had been overlooked, humiliated by her husband. Particularly gleeful about how far the Van de Kamps had fallen.

"He wanted to get in your pants?" Karl offered, noticing the way her face flushed at his less than subtle observation.

"By the time I realized he was manipulating me, it was too late. He had taken a bottle of pills, and wanted me to call the police. He said ... that I wanted him to kill Rex." Tears flowed down Bree's face, and Karl felt horrendous guilt for speaking so freely to her about the pharmacist. Karl was pretty sure that he had never seen her cry before. She came close that time she hosted a dinner party and a fellow guest "accidentally" dropped a glass of wine on her new, expensive dining room carpet.

Bree met his eyes over the rim of her coffee cup. "I told him I called the police already and that help was on the way. Then I sat down and watched him die."

There was silence as she took a sip of her coffee. "Andrew's trying to use this information as a means of extortion. My father and Eleanor set up a trust fund for him the day he was born. He believes that he's entitled to have it now, and he will go to any lengths to get it. He wants to buy a car."

Karl's eyebrows raised. Andrew's actions and treatment of his mother had always been deplorable, but without Rex around he could only imagine what he must be like now. If her son was informing her of how much he hated her before, spitting on her, bullying her, what must that boy be doing now?

Karl's azure eyes darkened like the sky right before it rained. "Witnessing George Williams' death was not a crime," he told her, fighting the urge to get up and hug her.

Bree was never at ease with casual social contact.

Karl got up to get her some tissues, and ended up risking her ire anyway by placing his hands around her shoulders. He simply could not go without comforting a woman in pain. To his surprise, she folded into his arms, apparently love-starved, and he didn't have to breach the cold perimeter that usually surrounded her, the only defense she had in the war of life. She was warm, and she was beautiful, and she was sad.

More than that, Bree felt good in his arms. Felt right, almost like she belonged there, but that thought puffed up and out like a cloud of smoke. He had enough drama with his girls, and he would never want to take advantage of Bree that way.

"I just can't take it all, Karl. Losing Rex was bad enough. To add the fact that the man I was in a relationship with after he died was the same man that killed him. Now this stuff with Andrew. Every time I think I've made a step forward with him, he takes me three steps back."

Bree clung to Karl like a life-saver, and he swore he could feel the need to be loved, to be touched emanating from her.

"Shhhh," Karl cradled her against him, pure fury at Andrew stewing in his gut like magma inside a volcano. "It'll be okay, Bree. You didn't do anything wrong. George murdered Rex. Not you," he reasoned, resting his chin on the top of her head. She smelled like wine and cinnamon. The cinnamon was lovely, but the wine? It was only two in the afternoon. That gravely disturbed him. "George killed himself. You didn't kill him."

It was awkward with no mediator between them. No Rex or Susan to soften the tension. No one that Bree had to be perfect for, because she was hugging the least perfect man in the world. A man who lost his wife and daughter because sex with his young secretary was too much a temptation to ignore.

"I'll talk to Andrew. Everything will be fine. I'll represent you," Karl told her, feeling her relief with the slump of her shoulders that immediately tensed right back up with good posture.

"Thank you, Karl. You have no idea what this means to me," she broke free of his embrace, and wiped her tears with his offered tissues. He felt strangely bereft in the empty space that she just occupied. It only took a few seconds, but that distraught woman was replaced with a perfect mask. As if the last hour hadn't happened at all. "I'll see you at ..." she glanced at the clock, "six? For dinner? With Edie, of course."

"She's on a real-estate agent retreat for two weeks. It will just be me."

"Thank you," she smiled, but it looked forced. "You can keep the basket."

_Oh Bree,_ Karl thought, as he showed her to the door. _You should know that I can't resist a beautiful woman. You should know that I can't resist you._

END 


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